Which is better: physical lens doing optical zoom, or the PureView technology? We want to find out in our Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom vs Nokia 808 PureView camera comparison below. We’ve got two fundamentally different approaches to imaging here. While the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom employs lens and physical zoom for getting closer to your subjects, the Nokia 808 PureView (and the Nokia Lumia 1020), are using a huge 41-megapixel sensor which gives you the power to crop towards the center of the image, hence selecting a portion of the entire canvas, for zoom.

We’ll be updating this post shortly with low-light samples and see how these two cameraphones compare in difficult conditions. Until then we’ll leave you with a bunch of other images and a couple of videos at the bottom. Let us know of your thoughts, as well as your preferences: would you prefer optical lens and physical zoom, for cleared, sharper images, or the huge sensor way?

Anton is the Editor-in-Chief of Pocketnow. As publication leader, he aims to bring Pocketnow even closer to you. His vision is mainly focused on, and oriented towards, the audience. Anton’s ambition, adopted by the entire team, is to transform Pocketnow into a reference media outlet.